Ogre

As noted, I didn’t ride my century.  I did, however, ride the short version, Irvine to Mission Bay (Sea World basically) this past weekend.  It was 58 miles on Saturday and another 42 on Sunday.  The ride felt great, I could’ve done a little bit more each day, but I definitely made the right decision not doing the full 100 on Saturday, I slacked too much in my later training.  Still, I feel like I accomplished enough of what I set out to do, and I don’t even feel bad today.  I feel like I could do another 50 today if I had to.  And although it wasn’t a race, I think I finished ahead of most of the pack both days, though it’s hard to tell on day one since all the really strong riders were probably doing the century.

So I guess I need to update the blog title too.  But that’s enough for now.  I do think I’ll do this or other rides again, I had a lot of fun, and I feel great.

Yesterday’s ride (where I took that picture) was 66 miles, which I just realized is the first time I’ve done a metric century (100km + a little bit).  That milestone should have come two weeks ago, but life’s been interesting, and I slacked on that ride and missed last week’s long ride completely.  Last week, leading up to yesterday, I’ve got things back on track.  Should have been 71 miles yesterday too, going by the schedule (and having set last week as a do-over of the week before), but 66 miles after two weeks of relative slacking was a pretty big deal.

Still only a little bit sore today though.  The ride itself was really tough towards the end, but I’m feeling back in the swing of things riding-related again.  Even if I did miss my ride today.  Sleeping 10 hours straight will do that.

Little known fact: in most parts of Orange County, fire is harmless. You can sit right in the middle of a roaring bonfire on the beach and not feel a thing. But the rules are different in Santiago Canyon. When traveling through that zone, fire can and will hurt you. Luckily, the server displays the following message when this rule change takes effect.

Fire is hazardous from that point on.

This is the best view on any of my frequent rides. Mostly because it’s a view of a nice long downhill stretch after a pretty good climb. It’s not very obvious in the picture, but there’s a giant orange balloon over on the right side. It’s at the future Irvine Great Park, the first thing they’ve put in there. It only just opened. You can go for a ride to get an even better view of Irvine.

This appeared in the L.A. Times, 1974.  I’m the smiling kid.  My brother is the future axe murderer.

The full name of the photographer is cut off, but I bet it was Boris Yeltsin.

Are you like me? When you hear the phrase “Half way there”, do you always have to mentally complete it with “WHOA-OH, living on a prayer!”? I hate all the crap in my brain.

Anyway, here’s how I looked after the full 46 miles it wound up being.

Actually not really, it felt really good. I could’ve even gone a little further. In fact, I feel better than I did after 40 miles last week. I’m really liking this program.

22 miles in, posted from the road.

Just finished the first long ride on my new schedule, 40 miles today. Rode the second half faster than the first too.

I will ride 10% farther every Saturday from now on up to 75 miles. Technically tomorrow is the last day of the week, but tomorrow’s 15 miles won’t be hard, Saturdays are the real test.

I thought today’s “brisk” ride was going to be hard. It wasn’t. I can push harder on the next one, no problem. Saturday’s 40 miles will still be tough, but I’m ready.

Also, rather than the Tahoe-Sierra ride, the MS 150 benefit ride is a lot more convenient. It starts in Irvine, right by here. And it’s a few weeks later, even more time to train. I’m leaning towards that one now (Thanks, Jesse).  But I’ve got lots of time to “shop around”.

Here’s the basic plan. I’m keeping my notes on the private version of that too. Google Spreadsheets is neat.

“Easy”, “Pace”, and “Brisk” are actually about heart rate, not speed.